Awareness - finding YOUR path

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Even as scientists all over the world are making concerted efforts to understand the human mind and the human consciousness, a plethora of provocative questions still remain unanswered. As someone said, if we could satisfactorily explain the workings of our minds, our brains would be so simple and underdeveloped that we wouldn't be able to understand anything! This is a definite limitation of the conventional sciences. And here's where people take recourse to spirituality, imagination and the occult.

Consciousness is a non-physical entity, which is essentially different from the four basic entities of space, time, energy and matter of the conventional science. Consciousness does not have any physical attribute or property or action, but is endowed with autonomous will power of creation, retention and annihilation of the knowledge of an individual or that of the universe. Consciousness manifests itself in the form of knowledge. Self-knowledge comes from awareness. Awareness is a learned skill – yoga and meditation are excellent methods to cultivate awareness.

How aware are you to YOUR path, YOUR desired or preferred story, way of being?

Throughout your life, there is a voice only you can hear. A voice which mythologists label "the call." A call to the value of your own life. The choice of risk and individual bliss over the known and secure. You may choose not to hear your spirit. You may prefer to build a life within the compound, to avoid risk. It is possible to find happiness within a familiar box, a life of comfort and control. Or, you may chose to be open to new experiences, to leave the limits of your conditioning, to hear the call. Then you must act. If you never hear it perhaps nothing is lost. If you hear it and ignore it, your life is lost.

Do you really want change? (see previous blog entry below re change)

When great changes take place in our lives it is a fine opportunity to exercise our own flexibility. Change happens for either good or bad; sometimes at our command, sometimes in spite of it. When we bring about a change ourselves, and it all goes according to plan, we’re pretty good at going with the flow of things, anticipating the expected results, and enjoying the benefits that change brings. When change unexpectedly happens to us, however, the results might take some adjusting to. If sudden, unexpected changes are beneficial then we count ourselves as lucky, or we feel tremendous relief, or we feel like we just won first prize. If the change is a downturn in our lot, or a loss of some sort, particularly when death comes knocking, then we find ourselves reeling in the face of the unknown. Human beings, however, are surprisingly resilient, and despite the fact that we may not be able to see ourselves returning to a life of normality after such changes of enormity, we somehow always do. One of the challenges that presents itself to us throughout our lives is the challenge of knowing when to actively bring about change.

The fundamental need for change in our lives often creeps up slowly, the cracks in our façade, our containers, our confidence steadily growing over time, sometimes even years, until eventually, if nothing is done, they splinter into bits. It’s then that we suddenly find ourselves going into a level of damage control we may have otherwise avoided, had we brought about change before those cracks opened up wide. Here lies the value of not only recognition, but the ability to objectively observe ourselves and our interaction the wider framework of our day to day relationship with the outside world. For it is true, that when circumstances reach crisis point, and we are forced to make changes in our lives we are usually not making our best decisions. We are often making choices and decisions in a knee-jerk reaction. We may find we have allowed a negative situation to exist for so long that we are no longer sure of what we can do to relieve it, or we have unwittingly limited our choices by default. Life, and the twists and turns it takes, is surely made infinitely more memorable, effective and interesting by the ability to be honest to ourselves about where we stand, and what we need to keep us creative and happy. So this year, may it be the year that you step back, look closely at your life, and identify your own individual bliss: then take a deep breath, hold courage in your hands, and firm resolve in your heart, and step into the change that you know will bring you closer to your truth.